


Angel & Smitten

by MadJJ



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angie Martinelli Is Maria Stark, Apparition of small original characters, Background Original Characters - Freeform, Edwin Jarvis - Freeform, F/M, Mention of Stalking, Misunderstanding, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, brief mention of Peggy Carter/Daniel Sousa, but Angie is always Maria in my fics, dealing with the emotional trauma of having a stalker, like really THEY ARE SO SLOW, lots of very short chapters, mention of abusive relationship, oh spoiler I guess, there's no actual burn it's all in the build to it, who act more as plot device than anything else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 43
Words: 18,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21574579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadJJ/pseuds/MadJJ
Summary: Howard doesn't think he'll go back to the L&L Automat after his first visit. He doesn't have a reason to.He's wrong.Angie doesn't notice the guy in the booth the first time he asks for coffee. She's not looking.That'll change.
Relationships: Angie Martinelli/Howard Stark, Howard Stark/Maria Stark
Comments: 38
Kudos: 31





	1. Howard - Conquered by the Morning

**Author's Note:**

> ... I don't know if I'm going to keep this title. It's the fourth one I have for this fic, at least, and I'm still not happy with it. If someone has thoughts about it (or about anything, really) they are welcome to tell me in the comments!

The night yawned one last time, letting the moon drop behind a building as it let itself slowly be conquered by the morning. The streets were cold as he walked away from the party house. Everything had been a flash; from the champagne, to the scotch and the girl who had been clinging to his arm the whole time. He probably lost a man’s small fortune over the last few hours, but nothing he couldn’t easily shrug off.

Howard looked at the time. His watch told him Jarvis was probably having breakfast with his wife. He’d loathe to interrupt his butler so early in the day; the man might be his employee, but he was also his friend – one of his only friends. Howard could wait and let him enjoy his time with his wife before he gave him a call to bring him back home.

The lights that surrounded him were bleak and painful to his tired eyes. His glance stopped over a green neon sight: L & L Automat. He had heard of this place before. Where had he heard the name?

Peggy had mentioned it the last time they saw each other. He considered the woman another of his friends, but he was not sure she did the same. The chance that he would stumble onto her here was weak, but he needed coffee.

He pushed the door open and was greeted by the sound of a radio on its last fuse and a waitress that gave him a bright smile despite the early hour.

“Welcome to the Automat. Please take a seat, I’ll be with you in an instant.”

She had a joyful voice and bright blue eyes – looking more awake than Howard had felt in hours.

He blinked at her, then headed towards one of the booths. They were as green as the neon light outside. The yellow lights hanging from the ceiling were giving him a headache – unless it was because of the hungover. He really needed coffee.

He ordered just that and the greasiest item he could find on the menu. The meal was subpar, but his headache was slowly fading away.

He gave a call to Jarvis, then waited for him outside, where the sun had finally started peaking from behind the tall buildings of New York.

When Howard stepped inside the car back home, he didn’t imagine he’d one day come back to the crappy dinner.


	2. Howard - With a Light Step

He was at a party in another house, yet in the haze that followed, his steps brought him back to the same place as before.

He stared at the sign. Still as ugly as the first time he had seen it. He shrugged to himself. The coffee did a wonderful job with his hungover last time, regardless of its taste, so he might as well.

When he stepped in, he was greeted by another waitress, but he noticed the one that had taken his order the last time in the back of the establishment. She was wearing the same smile as before as she served an older man with a cane and a severe tremble to his hands. Howard settled in the same booth as last time and observed as she helped the old man cut his pancakes without a word before going back behind the counter.

He expected the waitress that had greeted him to come get his order, but instead it was girl he had noticed. ‘Angie’, her name tag reads.

Rinse and repeat, greasy food and coffee, call Jarvis to come get him back home, and wait outside until he arrived.

He watched the streets around, before glancing back inside the dinner. He wondered what Peggy had found so appealing in that place. From the way she had dropped its name, he assumed it was somewhere she was so used to go that it didn’t need further explaining. It was part of the landscape, like ‘home’, ‘work’ or ‘market’, places that you had well-defined in your mind and that others could easily identify because of how generic they were in their own minds.

Howard imagined his friend didn’t find the view of the waitress walking with a light step between the tables as appealing as he did. She had long legs he could appreciate from here, and the same bright smile still clung to her lips. Did she ever stop smiling? He was musing that thought when Jarvis arrived, and then Howard was gone.


	3. Howard - Unusual

When Howard found his way back to the Automat a third time, he had to admit it was becoming a habit. The place was convenient, the food was crappy but effective, and the coffee had started to taste almost comforting.

If he really planned on coming back, he ought to do something about the radio. Every one else seemed used to the fizzling sounds it emitted, but he urged to get his hands inside of it and fix whatever was making the thing dysfunction. Radios might have been a challenge when he was six, but now he could have assembled one in his sleep.

He settled in what he was starting to consider ‘his’ booth. It was the second one when you started counting from the door, in the middle of the restaurant. You had a clear view of everything around you; great for people watching when you didn’t want your still foggy with hungover brain to do anything too exhausting.

The one person that was the easiest to observe was that Angie waitress. If he hadn’t been recovering from his long night the first time he had come here, he probably would have tried to make a move on her. She was pretty. Since he wanted to come back though, he probably ought not to. He couldn’t count the number of places he was no longer welcome to because a woman had taken his flirtations a bit too seriously and was crossed with his lack of interest in a relationship lasting longer than a night.

He could always enjoy the view though.

The view was sadder than usual. Or, at least, her smile wasn’t as genuine as before. He couldn’t tell how genuine it had been to begin with, but there was definitely something off about her. Maybe it was the way her shoulders were tenser, or how her fingers tip taped on the counter anxiously.

The phone affixed to the wall behind her rang, distracting him from his observations a second. The waitress startled, but didn’t answer it. Howard observed with faint interest as she was asked by another patron to do so, and how she took the phone with recalcitrance. She hung up the phone two seconds after the start of her conversation with whoever was on the other end.

Unusual.

The phone rang again.

She took it as if to answer it, closed the call just as quickly and unhooked the receiver so as to avoid any further calls.

Uh. Even more unusual.

Howard looked back at his cup of coffee. It was losing warmth. He downed the liquid, then got up from his seat to call Jarvis.

Whatever mystery was behind the waitress, that wasn’t anything that would keep him up at nights. He forgot what had happened and got back to his less than ordinary routine.


	4. Angie - The First Time

Angie wasn’t sure when was the first time she had seen him. Some customers, you only realized they had come in after the second or third time you saw their face and thought ‘Hey, I know that one!’.

It was what happened when she first noticed him. He was sitting alone in one of the booth and she realized he looked familiar.

Then she moved on. There wasn’t anything particular about him that she could notice. She remembered he ordered his coffee black. While some customer did so because they wanted to add sugar and milk themselves, so they’d be sure it would be the right proportions, he downed it just as he had received it, scalding bitter liquid straight into his throat.

The phone rang for the third time in an hour. Angie decidedly ignored it. She’d rather not take the risk to answer it and find that it was Theodore. It had been two months since she had broken up with him, yet he still called from time to time. At her work. At the new apartment, which she still did not know how he got the number of. At her parents and brother’s house too, a couple of time. He had stopped after Nino had threatened to find him and break his kneecaps, thankfully.

She was glad Peggy, her favorite customer, had been there the first day Theodore had decided to come see Angie at her work. Peggy’s scolding was what mostly kept Theo at bay during the work hours, she was sure. And without Miriam holding the Griffith like a fort, he would have been pestering her at home too. Miriam had, at first, asked her to tame her ‘friend’, but once Angie had explained the situation, the tenant had immediately reassured her that Angie would be safe at the Griffith. Deep down, Miriam was a total pussycat.

Theodore had called today though. He had begged her to take him back, then we she had refused, he had gone back to insulting her.

She had only ever had one date with him.

 _Accepting his invitation was the worst choice I ever made in my life_ , Angie thought.

“Miss? Are you going to take that?” asked a customer at the counter, pointing at the phone that still rang.

“I- Yes, sir.”

Sighing, Angie took the receiver and brought it to her ear.

“L&L Automat, what can I -”

She wasn’t halfway through her sentence that the string of insults came out of the speaker. Angie’s hand jerked to get it away from her. She closed her eyes, a tired frustration falling back on her face.

She hung up.

The phone rang again.

She took the receiver off, put it back then unhooked the phone and left it on the nearest surface.

Thankfully her boss was not in the dinner today. The day he happened to be there when Theodore called, Angie was definitely losing her job.

In the booth, the guy observed the scene with curiosity, his eyes following her. He then lost interest and focused back on his cup of black coffee.


	5. Angie - People Watching

The next time Angie saw him, she noticed a few more details that made him stand out.

He had come in the morning, ordered the same black coffee as last time and the greasiest food available. Clearly, a hungover. They got a bunch of those, especially on the week-ends. He didn’t look like a blue-collar though. Regardless of his loosened tie and rumpled shirt, one glance at his watch had Angie make a double-take. That thing looked expensive. She didn’t know how expensive exactly, but certainly worth several months of pay from a man’s pocket.

 _An alcoholic and a compulsive buyer_ , she thought. _By the time I’m an actress, I’ll truly have seen everything._

People watching was a way of killing time when she had a lull in her duties as a waitress. Didn’t happen all too often, but it didn’t require a lot of energy and was quite entertaining.

The phone rang behind her and she automatically tensed. Every time Theodore decided to call her, she was on edge for a few days.

_At least he’s stopped waiting for me after work._

It was terrifying when he was standing there, in the dark, looking at her without a word, when she didn’t know what he was planning to do. Ever since she always made sure she left with Darlene, Maisie or Earl, sometimes staying inside the dinner one more hour to leave with someone. He had still been there, standing ominously and leaning against a wall, but he didn’t try anything. She sometimes wondered if he just enjoyed scaring her.

When she answered the phone, it was just another reservation.

Her shoulders relaxed and she went on her day trying not to think about the man who thought he owned her because he had taken her to a lousy restaurant one evening.


	6. Angie - Sorry for the Sleepy

The third time she noticed him, he looked as awake as the last time – which was to say, not. She brought him his coffee and his eggs with bacon with a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. She felt a little sorry for him. Alone in some dinner at eight in the morning on a Tuesday? He probably didn’t have a family to go back to. She didn’t know what troubles pushed him to the bottle, but she knew everyone had their reasons. Growing up, she had seen a lot of alcoholics in her neighborhood – mainly because of the White Beluga, the bar at the end of the street where their apartment was. She had seen grown men weep like children on her doorstep, sometimes because she did something as simple as greet them politely.

(there were also all sorts of rude drunks, those she wasn’t so polite with when they tried to grab her)

“Here you go,” she said in her softest voice, mindful of his hung-over.

Her words startled him and he looked up to her face. His dark eyes bore into hers for an instant, but then she was gone.

There were a lot of other customers to service.


	7. Howard - An Annoying Fizzling

Howard had forgotten to take a screwdriver with him the last time, but now he had one with him. It had stayed in his pocket the whole night, a strange reminder of what he had planned afterwards. The weight of the object had seemed to add to the weight of his small, inconsequential decision somehow.

He was waiting for his order, eyes stuck on the radio. The annoying fizzling was making his hungover worse. Howard could have left the whole thing alone, find a place where they could afford or be bothered to make one simple reparation on a radio, but now he had grown fixated. It wouldn’t take him long. And it was still too early to call Jarvis. He could spare the time.

He was so focused on the device from hell that he didn’t notice the waitress walking up to his table until she was next to him.

“Here you go,” she said in a soft voice, as if she knew that speaking too loud would make the pounding in his head worse.

Startled, Howard looked up to her face. She had a kind smile. Paired with her blue eyes, it was no wonder she bore a name similar to an Angel.

She was gone as fast as she had arrived though. She didn’t linger much at tables, or at least not at his. Which wasn’t so surprising. She had a job to do after all.

He looked back at the radio, then down at his meal. He could always eat later. He got up from his seat and headed towards the counter.

He expected he’d have to explain his intention to someone, but no one seemed bothered that he opened up the box to toy with the mechanisms inside. The issue was easy to find; a connection that needed a little tug, and the radio sounded as good as it had upon purchase.

Howard went back to his meal and didn’t see the waitress who was blinking owlishly at him, stopped mid-step as she was carrying a plate to another patron.


	8. Angie - Starting to Lose Count

The fourth time Angie saw him, she had started to lose count. She didn’t keep a tally of every regular visiting – she had better things to remember, like the endless lines she had to memorize for her still unsuccessful and numerous auditions.

He was still as disheveled as usual, but when she brought him his meal, he said:

“Thank you.”

She smiled in response.

She almost thanked him for repairing the radio. It had been so long she had stopped noticing its malfunctioning, but now, whenever she turned it on, she was surprised by her own satisfied giggle as a smooth sound came out of it.

She decided against it in the end though. She didn’t have the time for conversation, and it would have been weird when it had seemed such a quick formality for him, right?

“If you need anything, I’ll be behind the counter,” she said as she moved towards the kitchens.

“Actually -”

Angie turned back to him.

“Yes?”

“Could I ask you for a refill?”

He showed his empty cup. She didn’t understand how someone could drink that much coffee in such a short amount of time – and she had seen a lot of frantic consumers of the dark liquid nectar in her days as a waitress.

“Of course!” she nodded with a smile.

“Angel, right?”

“Angie,” she corrected with a shake of her head, still smiling, “I’ll be right back!”

And she came back, she couldn’t help but say:

“You know, that amount of caffeine could kill you.”

She knew better than to chit-chat with customers on the job – her boss didn’t like it, a lot of people wanted to be left alone, when you got _too_ close people suddenly decided you were buddy enough that they didn’t need to leave you tips – but she was really growing worried about him.

“Is that so?” he smirked and cocked his head, apparently nonplussed by her comment.

“If it doesn’t, then it should,” she corrected. “I should probably cut you off,” she joked.

“By any means, if I do exaggerate, tell me!”

“I will,” Angie promised before leaving for the counter.

He had brown hair, brown – almost black – eyes and a thin, elegant mustache. Well-shaved, he seemed to aim for stylish, like those men in the magazines wearing fancy suits. He had a fancy suit himself, actually, but when he showed up in the morning after a wild night, it was all rumpled.

 _He could be handsome_ , thought Angie from behind the counter where she was people-watching, _if he didn’t look so tired_.

It was a shame, really. A guy with a face like that could probably get a job as a car seller and win lots of money in a few months, if he put some effort into it. Instead, he was here, nursing a hungover with buttered pancakes and coffee.

Angie resumed her people-watching and got back to work.

He asked her for a refill five times. She refused the fifth and he thanked her for it.


	9. Howard - A Terrible Promise

“Please, promise me you’ll come see it!”

Howard rolled his eyes, even as he was smiling.

“What else do you want me to do a Friday night? Sure, I’ll come see your play!”

If it was all the blonde man needed to be happy, he could spare an evening. He knew Fitzroy’s play would probably be terrible. The man was so eager and asked for so little though. Fitzroy was part of the friends that Howard didn’t really consider friends. The rich ones were mostly part of that category. Maybe he should have expected as much, but more often than not, when someone asked him for money, it was someone that already had a lot of it. His other, poorer ‘friends’ tended to try to take it without his notice – which never ended well.

Fitzroy, on the other hand, had the soul of an artist. Maybe he lacked the talent of an artist because of his very large inheritance. Howard was sure the guy would have been happy to get rid of his gold, diamonds and dollar bills so that someone would read his work or watch his plays.

Howard wondered how much the other man had paid to make his little fantasy happen. The inventor himself probably would have done the same, if his passion had been in theater. Thankfully for him, his creativity shone in a much more lucrative domain.

“You have to make sure to be there! Friday’s the last representation.”

“How long has this been running?”

“It hasn’t started yet. I could only book the theater for a week. The owner was asking for too much if I tried to make it last longer.”

_That play really must be terrible._

Hopefully he’d find some entertainment in it nevertheless.


	10. Angie - Some Good News

Angie wiped the counter, a stupid smile still fixed on her face. She had gotten a role! All right, it was a very small theater, there would only be three representations and the whole thing was just some rich guy’s fantasy of calling himself a writer, but she had a role! A main one!

Granted, the text was not the best either. Despite the guy working tirelessly on it and literally throwing his money at bigger theaters, no one had wanted to let him have representations, afraid that would tarnish their reputation. Angie almost felt sorry for the guy – Forks? Fitz? Farker? He had a weird name, she couldn’t remember it. He had been so eager and nice. Maybe it was his blue eyes or his blond hair making him look so much younger.

 _Almost_ sorry was the key word though, he had too much money for her to truly feel sorry for him.

 _Some of which will pay my performances!_ she thought with glee.

“Hi.”

She startled and almost slammed her hands on the counter in a nervous gesture. Like a child caught by a teacher doing something they should not, afraid to get a ruler to their fingers.

It was not a teacher though (or worse yet; her boss), but the guy from before, smirking at her reaction.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you, Angel.”

He had taken to calling her that, and she had found she didn’t mind it at all. It wasn’t like other people who purposefully misread her name tag.

(For some reason, Angie hated it with a passion when people called her Angela)

“It’s fine, it’s my bad, I’m sorry, it’s fine” she nervously spew, trying to cover her embarrassment. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m not sure I should say, now I regret interrupting you. You looked very happy there.”

“Ah – I received some good news – but really,” she half-turned to the board displaying the beverages and meals they served, “it’d be my pleasure to bring you whatever it is that you desire on this menu,” she said with flourish and grand hand gestures.

Sometimes, her silliness wasn’t appreciated by the customers, so she tended to be tamer in her behavior with them – Peggy, who she considered her friend, was maybe the only exception. Today though, she felt too happy to contain her bubbly nature.

The guy, still smirking at her antics, replied in a similar tone:

“Then I would like to ask for your darkest and strongest beverage, to reinvigorate those tired bones and soul of mine!”

Angie let out a small laugh that she hoped quiet enough not to attract anyone else’s attention.

“I like you,” she said, winking at him before leaving to fetch his coffee.


	11. Howard - Emphasis

It was Friday evening. Howard had promised Fitzroy he’d be there, and he was. On time.

He was regretting not going back on his word.

The play was slow and torturous. From the pompous dialog to the weird set, it only managed to get worst with awkward jokes thrown in there. It had begun ten minutes ago and Howard was starting to understand the true meaning of eternity. He wondered how much older he would feel once he was out the theater.

He had seen a couple of people leaving the room already – either pretending they had to go to the toilet or escaping for good. He was very tempted to do the same, but he knew Fitzroy would be overexcited at the prospect of talking to him about the play. He could try and stay a little longer. Try as he might, doing something for someone else’s benefit was not in his habits, and he was shifting in his seat.

Fifteen minutes after the beginning of the play though, something noticeable happened, something that shook him out of the slow-conquering slumber falling over him.

It required ten more minutes of intense observation to confirm his suspicion, but there was no denying it; the actress who had entered the stage was, indeed, the same girl as the one who served him coffee at the Automat.

The dialog was still terrible. The costume bordered on ridiculous. The stage was still as clunky.

But she made it… Better, somehow. Maybe because she was the only one really trying on that stage.

He found himself looking exclusively at her during the rest of the play. The way she walked, the way she talked, the way she moved her arms to emphasis a line or another.

From her expressions, he went on to admire the lines of her face; sculpted eyebrow and delicate neck. He remembered her wearing much more discreet make-up at her job, but here her lips were drawn in a bright red that underlined the width of her smile.

It was almost – _almost_ – with regret that he saw the play ending.


	12. Angie - One of Yours

Angie was mournful. The last of the three representations for the role she had gotten was the day before. Now it was back to her normal day-to-day life. She supposed at least she wouldn’t be so tired at the end of the week.

It was already the afternoon, she had hoped she would have gotten over feeling blue by now.

It had been a blast being on stage, even if it had been such a terrible play. The only cloud in her sky of happiness had been the unexpected apparition of Theodore. Her fingers curled into fist at the mere memory of it. She hadn’t noticed him at first; he had hovered near the entrance at the end of the last presentation. He hadn’t told her anything, hadn’t even gotten close enough for that; he simply had stayed there. And stared. She was uncomfortable just thinking back on it.

Maybe she had been too relaxed as of late; leaving the Automat early and alone, going on unnecessary walks to the park. She’d need to be more careful.

“Hey, isn’t that one of yours?” asked Darlene.

Angie, happy to find a distraction from the overbearing man, looked over at the front door. That was the guy, indeed.

Sometimes they had regular customers they liked to ‘claim’ as theirs. Darlene had nice grandma with a wig, old-looking-twenty-year-old and runaway girl for example. Angie’s regulars included pancake-obsessed, Great-War-veteran and scalding-black-coffee addict.

They had noticed that if they served the same person more often than once and established a rapport, they tended to get more tips – as long as they didn’t get _too_ friendly. It was a very delicate balance.

“Yeah, that’s scalding-black-coffee addict,” Angie whispered to her. “Has only ever come in the morning before though.”

“You don’t have too many tables?” Darlene inquired in case Angie couldn’t handle another customer in addition to the others.

“I’ll be fine, I can add him. That okay with you?”

“Sure, he’s yours, go ahead.”

Angie took his order. Same black coffee but nothing else. Had she been him, she would have gone somewhere else if what he wanted was a really good cup of coffee, but maybe he liked it the way it was done here.


	13. Howard - Honest Smiles

It was strange to see her again after he had seen her on stage. He thought he could have missed her too; he always saw her in the mornings, but now it was already the afternoon. He idly wondered how many hours she worked a day, in addition to the hours spent acting.

“What’ll it be for you today, sir?” she asked with her usual perkiness.

Was she always this cheerful? Was she pretending to be so cheerful? There was no way someone could be this happy all the time. He knew from experience; his smile was often faked to affect a carelessness he used to hide his sharp mind.

“Black coffee,” he asked, as was his habit.

He meant to talk to her about the play, but she had already replied:

“All right, you’ll have it in a minute!”

It felt wrong to call her back when she was already on her way to the counter, especially since it wasn’t for another order. Should he have ordered something else? Maybe that way he could tell her that he had liked her acting. For that, he’d have to explain he just so happened to be at the representation from the night before, but he could do that fast enough that he wouldn’t waste her time, right?

No, he’d wait another time for that, he didn’t feel like ordering anything else.

When had it become so difficult to talk to someone?


	14. Angie - You Were Missed

“Hey, Ang!”

“Hey, Darlene.”

“How was your audition yesterday?”

“A bust,” Angie shrugged. “I’ll get over it.”

She was so used to it by now, it barely affected her. Well, no, it did, but not nearly as much as in the beginning.

Angie was worried she had started to become a bit jaded.

“You were missed.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did you need someone else to help out?”

“No, it was fine, not what I meant. Your guy was here, what’s his name again? The good looking one!”

“You mean fancy suits? The coffee addict?”

“Yeah! He asked about you. Someone’s smitten!”

“Please,” Angie rolled her eyes, “you’re making things up.”


	15. Howard - Actress on the Side

“I’m not sure what more you want me to tell you Howard. She came in for the audition, she was the best of the bunch, I picked her, she did the three representations, end of story.”

“Did you know she was a waitress on the side?”

“It’s more likely she’s a waitress first and an actress on the side,” shrugged Fitzroy. “It’s not like they get paid a lot. I bet you she’s like many others; clinging to her dream of becoming a Broadway star while wiping her counter clear to pay her bills.”

“She has talent though,” insisted Howard.

Fitzroy straightened up in the sofa they were sharing to nurse their respective glass of bourbon. They were in a quieter corner of the bar. It was still early; the party wouldn’t be in full swing until later in the night and the music was still at a reasonable level, allowing for a calm conversation between the two of them. Howard wasn’t planning on staying long tonight; he had better things to do than spent his day nursing a headache from a restless night.

The only reason he had come was to talk to Fitzroy, really.

“You like her,” Fitzroy pointed out.

Howard shrugged. She was a likable girl, he was not going to deny that.

“She has a great smile,” he said as a way of explanation.

Fitzroy sunk back into the sofa, shaking his head with a smile on his lips.

“Never thought I’d see the day a girl capture your attention like that.”

“What do you mean? I’m interested in plenty of girls -” he trailed off as he appreciated the view of two women going to sit at the bar.

“Yeah, but it’s the first time I hear you speak about one you saw longer than a week ago.”

Howard didn’t mention that it had technically been longer than that since he had first met Angie.

“There is something though,” Fitzroy frowned at the memory. “There was a guy? Saw him a couple of time, eyeing her.”

“What do you mean, ‘eyeing her’?”

“I don’t know, I think he might have been waiting for her outside the theater to bring her home?”

Howard felt the smallest sting of disappointment, before shrugging it off. Didn’t have to mean anything, and even if it did, it had never stopped him before.


	16. Angie - The Usual

“What can I do for you today?”

He had come later in the day again. She barely saw him in the mornings anymore. He was looking better too. Still had a bit of tired hanging at the corner of his eyes, but his suit was impeccable. There wasn’t that tension in his shoulders, the one she supposed he gathered after a long night staying up doing whatever it was he usually did. He was more... relaxed.

Not a whiff of alcohol either, which Angie was grateful for. She hated when they had drunks come in and pollute the dinner with their scent for several hours.

“You weren’t there last time, Angel. I was worried.”

Angie smiled.

“Well, that’s why there’s more than one waitress! Sometimes we exchange shifts so we can take a day off,” she explained.

Angie took a look at the table on her left. More customers were settling down; the dinner was bustling with activity. As lovely as it would have been to talk more about her job, she needed to get it done or they would soon have to handle a lot of impatient, hungry people.

“Will it be your usual? Black coffee, right?”

“Uh -” he seemed a bit surprised that she hurried him along, but seemed to notice how many other people were in the restaurant. “Yes, please.”

“I’ll be right back then!”

When she brought him his order back, he seemed to want to speak again. Unfortunately, she still had a lot to do and didn’t leave him the time to say a word. She felt a little bad for brushing him off when he seemed nice, but work was work.


	17. Howard - Frustration for the Old Man

She gave him a bright smile, as she always did when she saw him. Howard started to wonder if she might like him just the tiniest bit. Maybe she had recognized him? He was famous enough for it, but she had never shown any sign that indicate she knew his name. She always called him ‘sir’, never Mr. Stark. Not that the second was much better than the first.

“What will it be today, sir?” she asked, as she did every time.

Howard, as he always did, kept to himself that he had already gotten what he had come for when she had smiled at him and told her:

“Black coffee, please. Haven’t seen the old man that’s there sometimes, not in a while.”

He was referring to an old First War veteran he had talked briefly with. The man had an uncontrollable shaking in his hands and a cane, but aside from that, he seemed very healthy.

He was also a topic that Howard had to fall back to since he had already exhausted all the others he had found during his previous visits. He was trying to talk to Angie, but she was desperately professional with him; never wasting more than a minute or two at his table before she left to take other orders or reorganize the counter.

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about him – he told me he was going on a small week-long trip away from the city. Said he planned on making lots of walks outside and enjoy the fresh air.”

Angie threw him another grin before she walked away to fetch his coffee.

How was it called again? Frustration, that was it. Howard was frustrated that the old man somehow had managed to get more than two words with her when he was struggling to keep her attention for even one. It wouldn’t have been too strange of Howard to simply ask her out, would it have? He wanted to get to know her, but that was hard to do when she was working.

It had come to a point where he was trying to figure out when there would be a rush of clients in the restaurant that would prevent him from talking with her. His schedule was rather flexible; perks of being your own boss.

Next time, he’d manage to tell her about seeing Fitzroy’s play.


	18. Howard - Cupid

Howard was never cupid when it came to tips. Unless the service he received didn’t deserve it, but he found that was very rare. When you had as much money at him, what others called being generous became meaningless to you.

The last time he had been at the Automat though, he had been generous. He hadn’t want to bother counting cents when he could just much more easily leave a handful of dollar bills. Plus, if anyone deserved it, it was probably the cheerful waitress who always managed to brighten his day with an honest smile and worked so hard when she belonged on a stage.

He hadn’t expected it to be what finally allowed him to exchange more than a couple of words with her.

“You really need to be more careful with your money!” she insisted, giving him back what he had given her.

“It’s not all that much, you should kee-”

“Not that much? That’s twenty five dollars! You could buy enough coffee to last the rest of the year with that!”

“I don’t need it, it was my mistake -” hadn’t been a mistake, but no point in insisting on that “- and I have more where that came from.”

Angie planted her hands on her hips, staring him down with a severe expression. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to look fierce, but he found her adorable.

“Just because you’re in luck at the moment, doesn’t mean you won’t need it later. I’m not taking money you might need soon from you.”

Seated in his booth, Howard stared at her, then at the money on the table.

She really didn’t have a clue as to who he was.

“Look, Angel, I want you to take it. Really.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Nuh-huh. That’d be dishonest. I ain’t robbing you of your money – and you’re not gonna drink all the coffee this would buy you, that would kill you! Now you put that back in your pocket and I’ll bring you your order in five.”

She was already leaving, but he still tried to keep her a little longer.

“I haven’t ordered yet!”

It would have been a lie to say he didn’t enjoy following her with his eyes whenever she was walking away, but he would have much rather she stayed a little longer.

“Coffee, black!” she replied without even glancing back.


	19. Angie - The Smirking Man

Angie saw him sporadically around the same time. He always acted polite and attempted to initiate small talk, but there always were a lot of other people she had to take the order of.

 _Is he that lonely?_ she wondered. Was that why he always tried to talk to her?

He also left consequent tips – once he even forgot a handful of dollars so she insisted to reimburse him the next time he came by, despite his protestations – so of course, she started to look forward to whenever he’d decide to drop by.

She had started considering new names for him too. It’d be weird to ask him directly what his name was, at least when they barely had the time to exchange three words before she was called elsewhere. She had fun coming up with new nicknames though.

Mustache wasn’t distinctive enough. Fancy Suit seemed a bit reductive. She outright rejected Smitten by Darlene.

Angie ended up settling for the Smirking Man. The first times he’d come, she hadn’t seen him smile all that much, but since then it had happened once or twice. For some reason, it was always a lone corner of his mouth that raised up when he smiled. It was a very distinctive smirk too, one that only confirmed her theory that he could have gone far if he slowed down on the fruitless night-long parties.

He seemed to have been doing better lately, regarding that aspect. Maybe he was getting back on tracks.


	20. Angie - Sleeping Habits

“Does he just change his sleeping habits to get up later and later in the day?”

“What?”

“Smitten!” Darlene nodded in the direction of the booth where Angie’s regular had sat.

“You mean the Smirking Man?” Angie asked innocently, deliberately refusing to acknowledge how Darlene’s choice of words was annoying her.

What she said wasn’t utter non-sense though; the Smirking Man had been showing up later and later every day.

It had begun at eight in the morning.

Then he had shifted for the meal’s time, and had slowly changed for one, then two, then four in the afternoon.

And now it was seven pm.

“Do you always pay that much attention to the hours our customers keep?” asked Angie, picking up a plate with four cups of coffee and a bagel for table 3.

“When they ask me about your shifts, I do!”

Angie was so surprised the bagel almost fell off her plate.

“He asked you about me?”

“Yeah. I’d say it was creepy if he wasn’t so cute.”

Angie’s nose wrinkled as she pondered, not entirely pleased with the revelation.

Sure, she thought he had been nice. But in the way she thought nice grandma with a wig was nice. If he was truly interested in her the way Darlene thought he was, she’d have to send a message.

Not only did she not have the time for a relationship, she also didn’t like the idea that she’d start dating one of her customer. How did you switch from considering a girl, the person who served you coffee, to your equal? With the way most men treated her, Angie was less than keen to test how that transition would hold up.

“Would you take his order for today? My plate is full,” she nodded towards the four cups and bagel.

There weren’t that many customers in the restaurant – _maybe that’s why he comes in later now_ , she realized – but Darlene understood what Angie meant. She seemed a little bit disappointed though. Every last bit of her itched to act as a matchmaker with Angie and every guy that she deemed ‘cute’ that entered the dinner.

The Smirking Man was the ‘suitor’ Darlene had fixated the longer on so far.

“Sure, Ang. I’ll go.”

Angie wanted to think things over before she faced him again. When she saw his disappointed face upon getting Darlene as a waitress instead of her, she knew she had made the right choice.


	21. Angie - Too Unstable

The Smirking Man had been a regular for about two months now. While Angie would be sad to see the generous tips go, she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. She’d ask Darlene or Maisie to take his table whenever he came to the dinner from now on.

She had considered confirming Darlene’s suspicions on the crush he seemed to nurse for her. Darlene had been right: he was cute. And nice. And whenever they had the time to exchange more than two words, he even managed to make her laugh – before she scurried away to serve another customer, that is.

But he was also very visibly unstable in his life right now. His weird hours seemed to indicate he had no job, yet he wore expensive suits and a watch that must have been a really good imitation. Maybe he spent all of his nights at a casino and, whenever luck was on his side, he hurried to invest in frivolous purchases. Angie had also seen him hungover enough time to suspect a problem with alcohol. She had no way of knowing if he was a sad or mean drunk, but she was not looking forward to drunken calls in the middle of the night.

All right, so she had let her imagination run wild to try to figure out what a long-term relationship with him would look like, and yes, it was a bit overkill on her part. So what if her mind jumped to the worst case scenario?

Right now, she was trying to focus on her career. She didn’t plan on staying a waitress all of her life, she wanted to do something that she loved, and she wanted to get there with the sweat of her brow and well-earned coins in her pocket.

She didn’t exactly have the time for a relationship right now.

For the next week or so, every time he showed up at the dinner, someone else took care of his order.


	22. Howard - A Misunderstanding

Something was wrong with Angie. He didn’t know why, but she seemed to be avoiding him. Had he said something? Howard could not remember anything he could have done – he hadn’t make a pass at her once. He knew because he had been regretting their lack of romantic entanglement for a while now.

He had thought things were going well. Sure, he didn’t make much progress in getting to know her more, but whenever they had five minutes to chat, it was pleasant. Maybe the best part of his day even. He missed seeing her smile at him. Howard knew she might have been only doing so because it was her job to greet the customer in such a manner, but it always felt so sincere and warm.

It must have been a misunderstanding. He didn’t know why the other waitress – Darla? - always took care of his orders now, so he tried to ask her, but she dodged his questions like they were deadly bullets.

After a week of not getting his fix of Angie’s smiles, he needed to take actions. He’d talk to her directly; the employees of the Automat closed everything up before leaving from the back door at the end of the day, so he was sure not to miss Angie if he waited for her there.

He was sure this would all be made clear if he faced things head-on. Maybe they’d finally get to talk longer than a couple of minutes and he could finally ask her on an actual date, where she wouldn’t be interrupted by her work every five seconds.

He had his hopes up when the door opened on a waitress, but it appeared to be the wrong one. Her eyes went round at the sight of him. He raised his hand to greet her and tell her that he was waiting for Angie, but she had already backtracked inside. Strange. She was not his main worry at the moment though, so he shrugged it off.

When the door opened again, this time, it was on the right waitress – and she was in the middle of a conversation.

“... calling him Smitten!”

Angie stopped dead in her tracks when she saw him, and blinked in surprise. Behind her, the waitress who had been out five minutes earlier whispered rapidly:

“I-just-wanted-to-tell-you-he-was-waiting-for-you-outside!”

_Smitten? What’s that about?_

Darla the waitress slipped between the two of them to head out to the main street.

“I’ll just leave you two to it then!” she threw over her shoulder.

Good, they wouldn’t even be interrupted.

Howard looked over Angie’s clothing; he was so used to seeing her in the shades of aqua blue and yellow of her uniform, it was refreshing to find her wearing something else – even if it was just a long gray coat that covered her uniform. It made her eyes look just as gray with the dim light coming from the lamp above the door. She was still as lovely.

“Did you want to talk to me?” she asked.

“Yes. I noticed you stopped waiting my table – I might just imagine things but are you avoid-”

“Yes, I was avoiding you,” she cut him off.

It was only then that he realized her gray eyes looked… Stormy. She seemed angry – or maybe nervous. He was taken by surprise at her sudden change; he was so used to seeing her chirpy at all times – she had never showed him such animosity.

“Why?” was all he could come up with.

Angie shrugged, a gesture that felt disdainful and very much unlike her.

“Darlene thought you might have a thing for me. I just made sure I wasn’t giving the wrong impression.”

_The wrong impression?_

“I- all right, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Ange-”

The nickname probably made her uncomfortable as well.

“Angie.”

“Wouldn’t have been so uncomfortable if you hadn’t stood here, _waiting for me after my shift._ ”

This was not at all what he had in mind – he merely wanted to talk to her. He hadn’t expected her to perceive it as – as -

Crap, the sky was dark, the streets were empty and he had been waiting for her somewhere he knew she’d have to go through, as if he was hunting down his prey. What had originally been common sense now seemed much more nefarious. That had never been his intention. Had he known how unwelcome his advances where he wouldn’t have been waiting for her here.

He tried to salvage what he could;

“I just wanted to tell you that you were great in _Little Dreams_ -”

That seemed to be the wrong thing to say. From cold anger, her face changed to stupor and -

And fear.

“You stalked me?” she exclaimed, taking a step away from him.

“What? No! I didn’t even know you would be in the play, I just -”

How had this gone so wrong so rapidly? He had just wanted to talk to her -

“I don’t believe you!”

Howard raised his hands up to demonstrate that he would not do anything, palms in her direction, and tried to say something but -

“Stay away from me,” she threw at him, her legs already activating to put as much distance between the two of them as they could get.

He watched her run away, stunted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, that didn't go as planned.


	23. Angie - Not A Coincidence

“Uh, Angie, about your guy...”

“Darl, I love you but you need to stop calling him ‘my guy’.”

Angie was shoving a take-away muffin in her bag with rage. Sure, she had kind of stolen it – Earl had told them he did not care but their boss did not share the same views as the cook – but she deserved a treat after the day she had had.

Three! That was three customers in a row that had decided that they had the rights to pinch her butt cheeks. She had smiled and she had kept the boiling well hidden inside, and what had she gotten in tips?

Bupkis!

Not to mention the insufferable kid at table 6 whose mother had not bothered to reprimand him once, even after he had spilled his chocolate ice cream on Angie’s apron. And who would have to pay to replace the now ruined piece of uniform, nevermind that an apron's purpose was to protect from stains and that their boss' need for impeccably clean uniforms at all time was ridiculous?

Angie herself, of course!

And Maisie had fallen ill that morning, but like a sweetheart she had decided to come warn them in person. What had been their boss’ reaction? If she was well enough to come here, she was well enough to work! When Maisie had refused, she had been fired on the spot.

Not only was that completely unfair, that also meant they were short one waitress and had had to reorganize their whole schedule to cover her shifts for much longer than just a few days. Angie would miss at least three auditions because their boss was a heartless, spineless little weasel. And that was mean for weasels!

Worst of all, Theodore had called. Several times. Angie was sure that, if Maisie hadn’t been fired that morning and they hadn't been short on staff, she would have been too.

“Ang, I know you’re angry but I really need to tell you about Smitten -”

Angie threw her bag on her shoulder and started to stomp out of their tiny locker room, so much in a hurry that she hit her shoulder on the wall in the process. The small shot of pain wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't been on her last nerve.

“For the last time, Darl, stop calling him Smitten!”

Just as she finished her sentence, Angie pushed open the door leading outside, revealing the very subject of their conversation.

“I-just-wanted-to-tell-you-he-was-waiting-for-you-outside,” Darlene squeaked in a breath.

Angie was only deflated for about a second before the sum of that day’s events raised her anger again.

Darlene quickly looked between the two of them, then whispered as she hurried away:

“I’ll just leave you two to it then!”

In normal circumstances, Angie would have tried to keep Darlene by her side. She would have been uncomfortable facing him alone when she wasn’t sure of his intentions.

Right now though, she did not care that the heaviest thing in her bag was a mushed muffin. She would have been more than glad to clonk him repeatedly over the head with it if he caused her any problem – hitting something would be just the thing to calm her nerves.

“Did you want to talk to me?” she asked archly.

If he was surprised by her seemingly unprompted animosity, he did not show it.

“Yes. I noticed you stopped waiting my table – I might just imagine things but are you avoid-”

“Yes, I was avoiding you,” she cut him off.

This time, he noticed her curt tone. For a second, not a sound came out of him while he was trying to find his words, mouth slightly agape.

“Why?”

Not to be mellowed by his confused expression, Angie shrugged.

“Darlene thought you might have a thing for me. I just made sure I wasn’t giving the wrong impression.”

Realization passed over his face and he blinked once or twice.

“I- all right, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Ange- Angie.”

“Wouldn’t have been so uncomfortable if you hadn’t stood here, _waiting for me after my shift_.”

Angie didn’t know why she was acting so antagonistic. He hadn’t done anything that justified it. But she had had such a long day, and she so wanted to go home, lay on her bed and do nothing for the next hour, yet he was standing there blocking her way when she had already decided she wanted nothing to do with him. Because she didn’t want anything to do with him. She really didn’t. Maybe if she had had the time – but that was not the point.

Her verbal attack made him defensive though. He tried to justify himself:

“I just wanted to tell you that you were great in _Little Dreams_ -”

 _Little Dreams?_ That was the name of the play she had been in!

First he readjusted his schedule to talk to her while she worked, then he waited for her outside, when it was getting dark and she was all alone, and now she learned that he had even found out about the play?

There had been no one but friends of the production members in the audience! No one had wanted to go there aside from supportive families and the rich friends of the guy who had written and financed the whole thing! That could not just have been a coincidence!

“You stalked me?” she exclaimed, taking a step back.

Not only was she furious, she was also starting to be a bit afraid. Why hadn’t Darlene stayed with her?

“What? No! I didn’t even know you would be in the play, I just -”

“I don’t believe you! Stay away from me,” she added when he raised a hand to make a gesture of appeasement.

His hand fell back against his leg and he stood there while she hurriedly walked away, almost running.


	24. Howard - Fun Over the Week-End

Howard did not go back to the Automat. In fact, he started avoiding the whole area like it was a landmine field.

He had made a very grave mistaking, interpreting Angie’s kind behavior as signs of interests. She was merely doing her job, and he had harassed her without even realizing it.

If he was being purely honest with himself, it wasn’t his first incident. He had a tendency to act very firmly on his attractions. Some of the women he pursued to tried to dissuade him with so much subtlety that he missed their points entirely. Howard had never been interested in unwilling participants. If a woman did not want him, he was perfectly able of finding another that would be more sensible to his charms.

The only problem was his lack of discernment when he became so absorbed that he missed all the cues that indicated the lack of reciprocity in attraction.

How had he not noticed earlier how Angie had always seemed to be running from his conversation? That she went from table to table and never stopped longer than necessary at his while she did so with other customers? How had he been so blind as to think she felt the same pull as him?

It was no matter, he had understood perfectly now. He’d stay away from her and she would finally be able to relax at her place of work. It’s not like he was going at the Automat for the coffee anyway.

He surprised himself walking back to the dinner without even realizing it a couple of times. It had become so ingrained in his routine, he merely needed to shake it off.

The waitress was back on his mind at unexpected times though. When he was taking his breakfast. When he was going over a contract to buy some land in Malibu. While he was showing his private plane to his latest conquest.

He didn’t know why he was still stuck on the girl. She had probably moved on before he had even realized he was interested in her. Didn’t Fitzroy mention that she had a boyfriend?

He was fine. He didn’t have any problem convincing Ida to have some very enthusiast fun with him over the week-end. Nor to sent her on her way with a bracelet as a thank you gift for the time spent together.

It’s only after he started comparing every new woman’s smile he met to Angie’s that he realized he might have a harder time moving on than he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm, probably not necessary to tag Ida Emke as a character considering that she's barely mentionned, isn't it? (but yes, it is THAT Ida)
> 
> Especially since she's mostly there to give you an idea of where we are in the continuity of the show!


	25. Angie - Second Guessing

Angie was worried she’d see him during the following days, that he’d show up at work and demand that she hear him out.

That was usually the pattern when she rejected a guy; he’d whine and complain at how she hadn’t given him a chance (or a second or a third chance in some cases). He’d act as if she _owed_ him something.

Angie did not find that behavior very appealing.

Luckily, she didn’t see him the next day.

Nor the next one.

In fact, it had soon been an entire week and he hadn’t showed at the dinner once. Darlene confirmed that she hadn’t seen him during her shifts either, and Marla, the girl who had been hired to replace Maisie, was very confused as to what they were talking about.

(Angie didn’t have the heart to tell her about some of the worst hidden parts of their job just yet, like how they had to smile and nod while some men came at the dinner twice a week to have their meal and insult them copiously, then acted as if it was flirting)

As time went by, Angie started to relax. It seemed he had given up on her, which was a relief.

Unfortunately…

She had started to wonder.

She hated it, the second guessing.

Had she reacted appropriately?

What if she had hurt his feelings?

He might have been acting a bit too out of line, following her without her knowing to the theater to watch the play, but there hadn’t been anything wrong with it, was there?

She had kind of liked him before. Maybe that was Darlene’s teasing getting to her head, but in other circumstances, she might have given him a shot.

Angie hated, hated that she was feeling bad about it. When someone didn’t act bad all the way through, then it made it harder not to rationalize their action. To try and see things from their perspective.

Angie hoped that, if he was a good person deep down, she hadn’t hurt his feelings. But even if he was a bad person, she couldn’t get rid of that small guilt building up in a corner of her mind.

Didn’t matter now, she told herself. She needed to stop thinking about it so much. Things had returned to normal. Even if she missed how he lightened up at seeing her come to take his order, she didn’t regret getting rid of a stalker.

Soon she’d manage to lock the Automat’s backdoor when she left at the end of the day without looking over her shoulder.


	26. Howard - Insincere

“You’re not well.”

“I really don’t see what makes you say that,” said Howard, eyeing the elegant silhouette of the woman who had just entered the bar.

Fitzroy put his hand on his shoulder to force him to look at his face.

“Can I get your attention for five minutes?”

“Sure, you have it,” Howard shrugged, still thinking about the blonde knock-out behind him.

“Howard, this is becoming ridiculous. I think I haven’t seen you go home alone more than two consecutive nights.”

Howard raised an eyebrow at his friend.

“That’s always how I’ve been, Fitz – don’t tell me that you’ve only now noticed it – or that you don’t like how I use my charms?”

The blonde had noticed him too. He sent her a wink, which she pretended to feel shy about. The gleam in her eyes told another story though.

“Not to that point! I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen you do anything but act like a peacock around some dame. I almost miss the drinking!”

Howard struggled to keep his assured smile on his face. He had begun to drink a lot more during the War. More even after the Battle of Finow. It had gone completely off rails after Steve’s…

But he had done gradually better after that.

Was his friends really going to reproach him replacing a bad habit with another, much less destructive one? He needed to get away from Fitzroy, he knew if he let the conversation progress further, he’d snap at his friend.

“Sorry pal, but this one is a real dish,” he nodded in the direction of the blonde woman who had left a very convenient and inviting spot open next to her. “We’ll talk later.”

Fitzroy sighed but didn’t try to hold him back.

Howard tried not to focus too much on how insincere the woman’s smile felt, even as she slipped a hand in his arm to pull him closer.


	27. Angie - Look Alikes

Angie had just had to abandon a conversation with Peggy, her favorite customer, to go listen to the complains of another regular. _He_ was quickly becoming her _least_ favorite customer.

She was waiting on a replacement for the rude guy’s BLT when Darlene arrived at the counter.

“Hey, Ang...” Darlene held a newspaper a client had left behind on the counter, “Doesn’t that guy look like Smitten?”

It had been a couple of months now, and Angie no longer startled at the mention of his name. As she sometimes joked with Darlene, they might have blown things a bit out of proportions back then. The jokes had helped to ease the tension and to pretend she didn’t have any regrets.

“Hmm, I think you mean that it’s Smitten that looks a bit like him,” Angie said, looking at the front-page photo of Howard Stark. “Smitten wasn’t as polished, that’s for sure!”

Smitten – Angie had just given in to Darlene’s nickname, it rolled off the tongue much better then ‘the Smirking Man’ - always had had bags underneath his eyes, he had been a bit disheveled and all in all, didn’t seem to know what tomorrow would be made of.

(Angie hated that it had given a kick in her maternal instincts or whatever it was that had told her she could have taken care of him. He had not been her project, darn it! She had herself to take care of!)

Howard Stark, the man in the photo, certainly did remind her of Smitten, but… He looked so confident on paper. Like he knew where he was going and what he wanted. There was probably an army of stylists running after him at all time making sure he looked impeccable too.

“But can you imagine?” asked Darlene, “If Smitten _had been_ Howard Stark?”

“Yeah, right,” Angie laughed, grabbing the newspaper and swapping away playfully at her colleague.

“Your suitor is a businessman!” Darlene simpered. “A gentleman!” she continued, carrying away a plate, while Angie chuckled at the show she was making. “A glitterati!” she continued still from further, making a couple of agile side-steps as if she were dancing, her plate in perfect balance.

Angie shook her head with a small smile, and looked back at the newspaper.

No matter what she did, thinking back to him still made her uncomfortable. Not about his behavior, but about hers, and how she had yelled at him without even hearing his side of things. Her smile turned bitter.

She was still so used to Theodore at the time, she had just expected him to ignore her demands.

She threw the newspaper in the trash and moved on with her day, self-depreciating thoughts clinging to her heels at every steps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m going to play around a bit with the dates here; Howard was supposed to have been seduced by Ida Emke more or less 5 months before the events of the first season of Agent Carter. That time has now been reduced to two months. Because I can.


	28. Howard - On The Run

Howard hadn’t known it was Jarvis’ intention to find Peggy at the Automat at first. He categorically refused to step inside the dinner. Thank goodness Jarvis intended on meeting her outside after leaving her a message.

It was probably stupid of him to care more about the fact that he could be seen by Angie and cause her more discomfort than he was worried about being seen and recognized as the traitor on the run everyone accused him of being. But it was the prevalent thought on his mind as he waited in the car for Jarvis to go find Peggy.

The butler came back a couple of minutes only after he had disappeared inside.

“So, is she coming?” Howard asked, his fingers taping the wheel one by one in rapid succession.

He was the one driving, in case they had to quickly get away. The Automat was close to the SSR Bell company office. It made sense as it was Peggy’s favorite hanging spot outside of her workplace, but that also made it all the more dangerous for Howard to be around.

“I left her a note to meet us in the back-alley,” Jarvis nodded.

Howard’s fingers kept tapping as he looked around. There was no way they could be seen from the inside of the Automat from this angle, but he couldn’t help his nervousness.

“Are you quite all right, sir? I don’t remember ever seeing you so on edge.”

“I suppose there’s a first time for everything, Jarvis. Maybe being on the run changes a man, even one as naturally relaxed as me,” he easily lied.

He wasn’t about to divulge the true cause behind his concern; that a waitress who had once refused his clumsy advances was currently a few feet away from him, only out of sight thanks to a couple of thin walls. The thought was an embarrassing one, just as was the memory of standing in that very same alley and being shown just how unwanted his attention had been.

Thankfully, Peggy did not waste any time showing up behind the dinner. One small misunderstanding later and they were on their way far from the Automat.

Howard ignored the pang of regret at not catching a glimpse at Angie before they left.


	29. Angie - Hypocritical

Angie hadn’t meant to be so insistent with Peggy. With each plea that she made for Peggy to accept to move with her at the Griffith, Angie realized how hypocritical she sounded. She complained about clingy men who didn’t take no for an answer, yet here she was, insisting.

Maybe it was because she felt overall safer when Peggy was around.

Peggy had probably been the sole reason why Angie had managed to keep her job as long as she had. Just imagining what Theodore could have done if Peggy hadn’t chased him away gave Angie shivers of dread.

She was about ready to give up on trying to convince her when Peggy changed her mind and decided to come live with her.

From favorite customer, Peggy was rapidly becoming her best friend. Angie now knew that Peggy didn’t mind too much being a little pushed.

Somehow, it made her think back on Smitten. She blamed Howard Stark’s photo in all the journals; it kept him in her mind. She wondered why he hadn’t insisted more to make himself heard. Which was even worse in regards to being a hypocrite, Angie knew. She claimed she wanted to be left alone, but then she also wanted him to ignore her rejection and show to her that he was actually invested? That was ridiculous!

The radio didn’t help. As much as she enjoyed a bit of distraction during work – let it be from radio shows, the music or even the commercial jingles – the quality of the sound was a constant reminder of Smitten. Without him, the radio would still be fizzling annoyingly.

She was angry at Howard Stark. Sure, she had never met the man, but if he hadn’t been accused of being a traitor, he wouldn’t be all over the news and she wouldn’t be constantly reminded of someone she had blown off two months prior.


	30. Angie - He Fancies You

Angie had been giving Peggy the cold shoulder for being so distant, which made her blue again. She wasn’t so much wounded by Peggy being distant as she was by her own reaction to it. Was she just so sensible that she could not bear things not going her way for more than a couple of minutes?

Theodore had told her that once. That she couldn’t handle the slightest contrariety.

 _You’re ridiculous, believing in what he told you_ , Angie tried to convince herself. _He said that after you got angry because he wanted to have sex in the back of his car! After one terrible, terrible date!_

She had wanted to spend some time with her friend after work. Talk to her outside of the Automat, at her brand new apartment – the one Angie had found for her. Was it so wrong to want a conversation where she wouldn’t be interrupted be her working?

But still, was she being too harsh on Peggy? Certainly...

As if her thoughts had been heard, Peggy pushed past the entrance of the Automat.

At first Angie still acted a bit miffed, despite her best attempt at ignoring her pride, but then Peggy told her about her colleague who had suddenly died at her workplace and Angie mellowed. The poor thing was truly shaken.

“I’m really sorry, honey,” she told Peggy whose quiet tears were quite uncharacteristic. “What can I do?”

She hated to see her friend cry when she had never seen her do so before.

“Miss, can I get a refill?” asked a customer in a booth.

She was already peeved with him because he sat in Smitten’s booth – which was not his fault, but just encouraged her to ignore him more until Peggy replied.

“Do you still have that Schnapps?”

Angie smiled. She had offered the bottle and a rhubarb pie the day before but Peggy had declined, which had started the whole cold shoulder thing.

“Miss?” insisted the guy, pointing at his cup and raising his eyebrows, seemingly to say ‘ _Are you stupid or what_?’

“Let me get this jerk’s refill and I’ll clock out,” Angie said, throwing Peggy a meaningful glance.

She grabbed the pot of coffee behind her.

“I think that jerk quite fancies you,” joked Peggy weakly, a tear still falling down her cheek.

“Shut up, English, you talk too much,” Angie dismissed her with a wave of her hand.

Her fake smile fell when she went over to refill the guy’s cup though.

 _There was one guy that definitely fancied me, but I didn’t even give him a chance_ , she thought.


	31. Howard - Imagination

It was good to be back in New York – even if Howard was still on the run. And even if he was confined to Peggy’s room.

He still got around.

All the ladies of the Griffith Hotel were really welcoming. Howard knew Peggy would have preferred he act more discreet, but he was bored out of his mind. A bored Howard Stark was a Howard Stark that stew in his thoughts, and those thoughts were rarely pleasant when he didn’t have a creative outlet. It was either visit Peggy’s lovely neighbors or take apart the alarm clock and electric outlets to construct a homemade bomb to ease his nerves.

She should have been glad he had picked the least destructive option.

Peggy was back from her workplace with the photographs of his inventions. That was what he had come here to see. She didn’t voice her disapproval per say, but he could still hear it in her tone when she noted that the first few photographs had nothing to do with the impending destruction of New York by his own genius and the evil intention of the ones that had stolen from him.

He cut off the images Beatrice had stricken a pose for and gave back the film with the actual photos of interest. He kept Bea’s, of course.

“Your inventions...” began Peggy, before being interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Who is that?” he asked.

“Peggy!” came a muffle voice from outside the apartment.

A woman’s voice – not Miriam’s as far as he could tell. The tenant of the Griffith would have had both their heads on sticks if she found that there was a man above her sacred second floor.

Peggy sighed.

“Communal dining is one of the joys of residing at the Griffith.”

“Peggy, are you in there?” asked the woman again, still knocking.

“She sounds nice,” he noted.

And a bit familiar too. Before he could ponder longer on that thought, Peggy already warned him:

“Hey! Stay away.”

Then, louder:

“Actually, Angie, I’m feeling a little under the weather -”

“No, Peggy, you should go,” he interrupted her. “I worry about you, you work too much.”

He was so preoccupied with the inventions and Steve’s blood, the one thing he wanted to keep away from her, that he barely registered that something in what she had just said was sending alarm bells through his head.

“I’ll look at the rest of the photos myself,” he offered as he took the film from Peggy’s hands.

He moved behind her to get closer to the light and observe the photographs, all the while hiding the crease that formed between his eyebrows. What was it that he had heard…?

“Peggy, you sure? You need Pepto?”

Howard’s grip on the film tightened suddenly and he worried he might damage it. But that voice – no, it must have been his imagination.

It was probably another Angie that Peggy knew, that would have been too big of a coincidence.

“Coming!” answered Peggy to the girl.

Howard asked her to bring him back some food before she left, anything to keep his mouth running and stop his mind from going to the worst case scenario, but the moment Peggy left, he couldn’t help but wonder.

What if it was Her?


	32. Howard - Too Big A Coincidence

Too big of a coincidence, he repeated to himself. His imagination, nothing more. That certainly wouldn’t keep him inside the room.

While Peggy was away, he intended on visiting the other tenants again. He had promised Helen they would pick up where they had left off.

He was exiting her apartment when he saw Angie. Howard immediately backtracked inside of a very confused Helen’s apartment. With a finger on his lips, he asked her to stay quiet, which she did. At the other end of the corridor, the woman he had not managed to stop thinking about was going inside her own apartment, looking weary after a long day at work.

She was even more beautiful than he remembered. Bright blue eyes, light brown curls, long elegant legs and a frown replacing her usual smile, it sent a weird sinking feeling in his stomach to see her. It was all over too quick; in a manner of seconds, she had disappeared behind the door.

“Is she gone?” asked Helen in a whisper.

“Yeah, I’ll – I’ll be going now.”

Helen did not need to know the actual reason of his hiding.

He did not leave Peggy’s apartment after that almost encounter with the waitress. The risk was too big. Inside the small room, he paced like a caged lion, trying to think of something else than the fact that she was in the room over.

What was it with this girl that made him so fidgety? They hadn’t even kissed and all he could think of was her lips, looking unnaturally sad without their smile. He wanted to see her again – but he knew a smile would be the last thing she’d give him once she saw him. The look of fear and disgust he remembered from her was not something he wanted to experience again.

Peggy took way too long to come back, but once she did, he had much bigger worries than the girl one room over.

Peggy was _pissed_ after discovering his lies about the ‘The Blitzkrieg Button’.

Looked like he could do nothing but disappoint the women that mattered in his life.


	33. Angie - I'm Not Afraid

When guys from the SSR came to her apartment, looking for Peggy, Angie didn’t hesitate more than half-a-second.

Whatever Peggy had done – or whatever they claimed she had done – she was the reason why Angie hadn’t lost her job. Without her, Theodore would have come back, insisting she gave in another chance, while she was still at work.

So Angie lied, manipulated and distracted the men until they left, allowing Peggy not to be caught by them – at least, not in her own room. It went down hill after that, before things finally looked up for her friend again.

Several days later, Peggy’s name was cleared, Howard Stark’s reputation was cleared, and Angie had to clear her apartment.

Thank goodness Peggy invited her to live with her!

When she had mentioned her friend’s name, Angie had been a bit nervous.

“And… I don’t have to meet Howard Stark, do I?”

“No, of course not. Why? He’s not a traitor, I can assure you, you have no reason to be afraid of him.”

“Afraid? Oh no, don’t worry English, I’m not afraid!” Angie had laughed.

She might have been the tiniest bit afraid. She _knew_ that Howard Stark wasn’t Smitten – there was no way – he really couldn’t have been – that was ridiculous. But he still looked like him a lot, and Angie already felt a pang of regret for the way things had ended every time she looked over at Smitten’s booth of choice. Or every time she turned on the radio. Or every time someone ordered black coffee.

She felt a pang of regret very often.

“It’s just,” she explained instead, “He’s that really important guy, and I’m like, this tiny person who brings people coffee, it’d be embarrassing.”

Peggy had chuckled at that.

“I don’t think you could ever be embarrassed in front of anyone, Angie. And, really, you shouldn’t think so highly of Howard. He might not be a traitor, but that doesn’t make him perfect,” she rolled her eyes and Angie couldn’t tell if there was more affection or annoyance in her tone.

Eventually, Angie ended up living with no expenses in one big, flamboyant house, without even needing to meet the owner.


	34. Howard - Back on My Feet

Peggy had eventually forgiven him for his stupidity, and helped him clear his name. It had taken a lot of work on her part and for him to risk his life.

As well as all of the New Yorkers' when he was flying his plane above them.

That was a strong call back to reality if there ever was once.

He still had a lot to make up for. For all his attempts at making the world a better place, in his book, there was a lot of pain he had caused or failed to prevent.

He hadn’t been at peak condition those past few years. Between the sorrow of the War and his silly heartache that had led him to the arms of that Russian knockout and created a whole world of problems for him… It was really about time he got back on his feet.

There was an idea he had began nursing a while back, one that had to be set back a few months after the unfortunate events in Spring.

All his preparations had been for naught – for one, he had been so sleep-deprived at the time that half the notes he had written were illegible. Even to himself. The other, legible notes, did not help him much because they were mostly non-sense.

It took him some time to get back to an acceptable level of preparation – thinking of the logistics, convincing that good ol’ Chester Philips that no, he was not playing a joke on him, and preparing for the resistance he knew he would have to face from the government. An agency based on their soil, but not influenced by their power? That was bound to attract some disapproval.

He had stopped pursuing as many women as before. Not entirely, of course, one did not change his entire nature even after a little brush with death – especially when it wasn’t the first one he experienced – but he found he had much more to do than frequent bars in search of who would warm his bed next.

(Fitzroy seemed to think he had finally gotten through Howard, and the inventor didn't have the energy to spare to convince him otherwise)

He had realized how ridiculous his reaction had been. Because he had been scorned by a woman he had barely known, of all the reasons? He had tried to find solace in the arms of so many other women. Yet, he had always thought that they could not measure up to her. A woman he hadn’t known in the biblical sense, or even as a close friend – a stranger, in a word.

To prove to himself that he wasn’t as affected as his actions might have lead one to think, he even went back to the Automat.

The place had felt familiar and strange at the same time, like an old friend you used to be closed too but hadn’t seen in so long that you no longer knew how to approach them. The garish colors were the same. He even recognized some of the patrons and one of the waitresses.

Not the one he had truly wanted to see though.

It was for the best. It was past time he moved on from… Whatever had happened.

Moving forward with his plans, he visited Peggy. He had offered her to stay in one of his houses after what she had done for him – that was also a way for him to apologize for what had happened with Steve’s blood. The least he could do.

Howard had every intention of involving Peggy in the creation of SHIELD. He could not think of anyone better to build the new institution. Chester had the experience and connections, Howard had the money (and other connections), and Peggy would bring in her sense of duty, her field expertise and her impeccable morals. Howard knew the latter certainly wouldn’t come from him.

His thoughts were only focused on that when he went to ring at Peggy’s bell. His finger never reached the button though, because he was frozen on his feet the moment he saw Angie, standing in the doorway in front of him.


	35. Angie - Life Goes On

Life went on. Angie got hired in a theater company for a play that ran several months, and quit her job as a waitress.

Peggy kept working at the SSR, still coming home with a load of emotional burdens, either from the nature of her work or from the harassment from her male co-workers.

The two women grew closer friends very rapidly, so much so that Angie couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t lived together.

She still had to see head or tail of the owner of the house, but they were never asked to move out. As Jarvis, Howard Stark’s butler, had said, they could stay ‘as long as they required’.

Angie had enough income now that she could hope to get a place by herself, so the ‘required’ part wasn’t that true anymore, but why move when she could stay with Peggy? It was such a great place to boot! She was happy!

Now that she didn’t have to work nearly as hard to get started on her dream job though, she had been reconsidering her objectives. Right now, giving her best performance on the stage wasn’t as time-consuming as being a waitress and doing auditions had been. There was no sense in looking for what she’d do afterwards just yet, not when she had still months to go before the play representations stopped.

Peggy had mentioned that Angie didn’t have to live like a nun on her account while they were talking about Daniel. He was one of Peggy’s coworkers (that and... Something more) and he had been transferred to another city without as much of a good bye, which Peggy was still a bit upset about.

(Angie thought he sounded like an idiot and that Peggy was too good for him, but she knew it wouldn’t help Peggy if she told her that)

So, Angie started dating again. It wasn’t easy; it had been a long time since she last had a date.

The last time was with Theodore.

Angie was still a bit jumpy. She might have ended relationships before they even began several times, blowing up every flaw she detected out of proportions because she saw a bit of Theodore in everyone.

She was doing better, especially since he hadn’t called in forever. A common friend she hadn’t seen in ages had stumble upon her in the theater she worked at. They had gossiped to their heart content, and Angie had learned he had found someone. She hoped he would be good to her, and that his new girl wouldn’t regret meeting him the same way Angie did.

She wished she could have said she had found someone.

That was something Theodore often told her – right before she hung the phone on him – that she would never find someone as good as him.

She hated that being single technically proved him right.

The thought shot through her brain, unbidden, just as she opened the front door to leave for groceries and found herself face to face with Smitten.


	36. Angie - Much More Handsome

Angie stared at the man. The man stared back. They were both speechless for one, two, three long seconds.

Then, Angie’s brains finally caught up and alarm bells started resonating in her mind.

“Smitten?” she asked, just as he said:

“Angel?”

This couldn’t just be a coincidence, right? Why had he come here? Had he tracked her down? Oh no, he knew where she lived! He would come knocking at her door at all hours, and he would find her phone number – the phones! There were so many in the house, how would she disconnect all of them? And her job – she had finally found something she loved! What if he went there and she lost her role because of him?

In a couple of rapid blinks, Angie was remembering the nightmare that had been her life after her date with Theodore. All her regrets regarding her treatment of Smitten from the last time they had seen each other went out the window, replaced with a sense of dread and panic.

“What are you doing here?” she asked accusingly, taking a step back.

 _You should just close the door to his face_ , her brain supplied, a second too late. Smitten had taken a hesitant step forward, seemingly by a mere reflex. If she tried to shut him out, his foot would now block the door.

“Me? I own this place!”

Angie was startled out of her new idea – _just push it harder, he’ll budge if you destroy his foot!_ \- by the statement.

“What? No, Howard Stark owns this place.”

Smitten blinked owlishly at her.

“Angel, I _am_ Howard Stark,” he explained slowly.

“No you’re not!”

Angie let go of the door and crossed her arm, frowning at him. He couldn’t possibly be Howard Stark! Because – Because…

“Howard Stark is much more handsome than you,” she argued.

Conflicting feelings played over Smitten’s face.

“I- I honestly don’t know if I should take it as a compliment or not.”

“Angie, what’s going on?” called Peggy from the other end of the corridor.

Before Angie could formulate a satisfactory answer, however, Peggy had started walking in their direction and had seen their unwanted host.

“Howard? What are you doing here?”

Angie’s head snapped back at – at -

Howard Stark?

Smitten was Howard Stark?

The guy she thought had been stalking her, the guy who came to the Automat to drink buckets of their crappy coffee, the guy who smirked at her while calling her Angel and who always seemed hung-over and wore rumpled suits?

Angie’s eyes had gone round as saucers as she stared at the millionaire – no, wait, he was a _billionaire_ – thinking _I have not been this embarrassed since I threw up on Michael Rivera’s shoes_ and wishing she was anywhere but here. She prayed to god she could be launched straight into the sun, but god ignored her and she remained mercilessly glued to the floor, frozen with a panicked expression on her face.

“Angie, are you all right?” inquired Peggy, noticing how dramatic the actress’ face looked.

“I’ll go fetch the groceries,” she squeaked before brushing past Howard in a hurried pace to run away from the whole situation.


	37. Howard - More Than A Footnote

Howard looked Angie run away, still flabbergasted by the whole encounter.

Angie was Peggy’s roommate? His friend had mentioned another woman living with him, but he had dismissed it as an unimportant detail. How could he have imagined that something like this…?

And… She had recognized him. Without even knowing who he was.

If he had stayed in her memory because of his recent apparitions in the newspapers – courtesy of the treason accusations – he wouldn’t have been so focused on it but… She still remembered him. Even if she hadn’t realized who he was.

 _Smitten_ , she had called him that before, hadn’t she?

Among all the confusion, the feeling that was prevalent above all else was disappointment at seeing her run away from him – again.

“What was that?” exclaimed Peggy, looking as surprised as he felt.

“I – We - We’ve met before, but...” he trailed off, uncertain as to what to say.

What was there even to say? They had met, he had thought they could… Start something, but she had made it clear she was not interested. All of it shouldn’t have been more than a footnote in both of their lives, yet months later he was still thinking about her and she… She was still very obviously shaken about the whole thing.

“What did you do to her?” Peggy immediately accused.

“I – nothing – well, not much! It was months ago, we just… spoke a few times, that’s all!”

Howard shook his head. He had almost completely forgotten the first motive of his visit. Considering how Peggy was frowning at him at the moment, he didn’t think they could go back to it. Howard himself was too distracted to really focus on work.

Had he upset her? He shouldn’t have come here.

“Howard, that did not look like ‘nothing’,” said Peggy, but he barely registered her words.

If she hadn’t known who he was… Would she have come live here with Peggy, had she known? If his mere presence made her so uncomfortable, did that mean she would feel obligated to leave her home?

Howard hadn’t been poor in many, many years, but he still remember a time when he didn’t have his choice of residence in every city he visited. He didn’t want her to find herself without a roof above her head.

Like an echo to his thought, a rumble came down from the gray sky. It would rain soon.

“I’ll… I’ll come back another time,” he said to Peggy.

Maybe he could catch up to Angie and talk to her.


	38. Angie - Smirking Tomatoes

Angie focused all of her attention on the groceries, not allowing for a moment her mind to slip back to the encounter she had just had.

The tomatoes somehow managed to smirk up at her, and she had to stop herself from bashing them into a pulp on the stand. She started getting worried when the lettuce seemed to smirk as well and gave up on the groceries with a sigh.

She left the market place and wandered until she found a bench she could flop down onto. Her elbows on her knees, her jaw resting on her hands, she stared at the pavement. A drop of water fell down and darkened the asphalt, followed by another. When she raised her eyes to the sky, the sight of the gray clouds was blurred by the rain drop that fell in her left eye.

It was enough water to be uncomfortable sitting there, but not enough to convince her to walk back to the house.

How could she face him – Smitten – _Howard freaking Stark_ – now that she knew who he was?

He was Peggy’s friend, so that explained his presence on her doorstep. What an idiot she had been, believing he had been after her! As if a rich businessman would bother running after a little waitress like her. And she had never recognized him! The more she thought about all of it, the stupider she felt.

The fact that she was sitting there in the cold rain to avoid him did not help. She was soaked now; her hair glued to her cheeks unpleasantly and her clothes felt heavier and cold against her skin. There was a small hole in her left shoe she hadn’t noticed before. Water trickled in through it.

Angie felt pathetic right now.

And to think she had secretly hoped she would meet him again by complete accident. Have a chance at apologizing for her overreaction and – who knows! Rekindle whatever it was they had. When she had first met him she had judged him rather harshly, and even up until she had seen him standing on her doorstep, she hadn’t understood why she was even considering him.

Darlene used to say something about some men Angie fainted an interest for. Not affected by her attempts at humor, the other waitress always retained all the solemnity that she affected for her unofficial role as Angie’s matchmaker. What was it again that she said?

_‘You’re too good for him, Ang. I can find you someone better.’_

Too good for him, that’s what she had thought. Ha! How presumptuous of her.

_Look at you now, looking like an alley cat. Theodore was right, you’re not worth more than the clothes on your back._

Angie sneezed in her sleeve. She didn’t have tissues; in her hurry to leave, she hadn’t brought her bag with her. She didn’t even have her keys on her.

_Small mercy that I didn’t try to buy anything at the market. I hadn’t even noticed I didn’t have any money with me. I can’t take any more embarrassment today._

The spot of wet asphalt she had been staring was suddenly covered by the leather of a shoe, then a second one. Angie’s eyes trailed up to find legs, a torso, and finally, a very concerned face.

“Angel?”


	39. Angie - Off the Wrong Foot

Angie was freezing in the rain, so being immobilized by surprise when she saw Smitten – Howard darn it, his name was Howard Stark – Mr. Stark – when she saw him, it did not change much.

She wondered if after all the bad luck she had had today, some lightening could have pity on her and strike her down. Now. Right now.

“Angel, you’re going to catch your death here!”

_Darn it lightening!_

“I- uh...” Angie stammered, probably looking like a complete fool with her mouth wide open and unable to articulate any sort of word.

Stark moved his arm so his umbrella would cover them both. He looked at the bench, maybe considering sitting next to her, but then saw how wet it was and decided against it.

“I’m sorry if I startled out of your home.”

Angie remembered the coaching session from her director about articulation. She focused a moment to remember how to push the words out of her mouth.

“Technically,” she said slowly, “it’s your home Sm- Mr. Stark.”

She had to stop calling him Smitten now – especially to his face.

“Don’t call me Mr. Stark, that was my father,” he dismissed immediately.

 _Then what the heck am I supposed to call you?_ Angie wondered without daring to voice the thought out loud.

“And it is your home. I guaranteed it – and I promise you, I didn’t know beforehand it was you Peggy was talking about when she mentioned a roommate – I didn’t intentionally lure you into the house – I know I make you uncomfortable.”

He seemed pretty nervous himself. Angie knew it was her fault – he had every right to be weirded out by the woman who had thrown crazy accusations at him at the backdoor of a dinner at night.

_If he didn’t know it was me, then -_

“I can have my room cleared out by tomorrow,” she promised.

She’d be sad to leave – it was a wonderful house that she had been extremely lucky to live in – plus she’d miss Peggy a lot, but it was for the best. She didn’t want to burden him with her presence.

“What – no – you don’t have to -”

Howard sighed in frustration, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Listen, I think we got off the wrong foot. I’d like us to… Talk calmly about what happened – if you wouldn’t mind.”

Angie stared at him wordlessly. She didn’t know why he’d want to give her a second chance. She was on the defensive as always, but she was too tired to hide.

“I – yes. I think I’d like that.”

“Not now though,” he pointed at her clothes, “You’re drenched. You need to get home before you catch pneumonia.”

Angie almost protested, but was interrupted by another sneeze.

She thought it’d be best to do as he said before he realized she didn’t have any other tissue than her sleeve.


	40. Angie - I Like Your Attention

He had accompanied her back to the house to keep her dry – despite how useless the umbrella was since she was already soaking wet, she hadn’t wanted to protest.

Once she had gotten past the shame and the fear, she was glad she had been able to see him again. Maybe it had been the yellow lights and the green booths of the Automat that had given him a sickly glow before – or maybe she had never gotten past the first image she had had of him; rumpled and hungover. Now that she had seen him in the light of day, even with the pouring rain, she wondered how she could have ever thought he wasn’t Howard Stark.

The thought still puzzled her. What had he been doing in the Automat in the first place? And why had he bothered to ever give her a second glance?

Some of her questions found answers when they saw each other the next day, just as they had agreed, to talk.

“Peggy had mentioned the Automat to me once. I stumbled upon it after a long night out, saw the name and remembered what Peggy had said about it. So, I decided to test it out for the heck of it.”

“You tasted our coffee and decided you would still come back? I know Peggy said she found they did tea just how she liked it by some random happenstance, and she wouldn’t know good coffee if it hit her in the face, but surely you must have known better?”

Her remark about Peggy and her tea made him laugh.

“The coffee wasn’t so bad, else I wouldn’t have been drinking so much of it. And – I – uh – I must admit that after a while, it wasn’t the most appealing thing about the place.”

Angie felt herself blush furiously and did her best to keep a straight face in spite of it.

“Ah – I’m sorry, I made you uncomfortable again,” Howard apologized.

Peggy, who had been snooping in the kitchen where they had sat down to have their talk so she could ‘get a pot of tea’, betrayed how much she was paying attention by letting her head snap back to Howard with a shocked expression.

Angie wondered how much longer her roommate could pretend she had forgotten where the sugar was.

Especially since she never added sugar to her tea.

The actress didn’t let her attention get distracted by the brunette too long though, focusing instead on Howard to answer his concerns:

“No – no, you’re not making me… Uncomfortable, I-”

She sighed.

“It’s my fault, I’m nervous when someone… Gives me attention.”

She wasn’t willing to tell him how she still startled sometimes when she heard the phone ring. Or how she couldn’t walk alone in the streets longer than five minutes without looking over her shoulder. Or how she still needed to check the windows several times before she went to bed.

He’d think she was crazy. And he would be right.

Howard nodded, then suggested:

“I can just stop giving you… ‘attention’ then,” he offered.

Peggy rolled her eyes behind him, but Angie ignored her again.

“No! No, I like your ‘attention’ -” she tried to explain, “-I don’t get why you’d have any for me, but I-” she stumbled on her words before finishing in a weak voice, “I like you...r attentions.”

He smirked and she realized how much she had missed it when her heart skipped a beat at the sight.

Howard then looked her straight in the eyes and spoke in an honest tone:

“Listen. I like you. And I stopped going at the dinner because you asked me to stay away from you, but if you tell me you don’t mind, we could get to know each other.”

The offer was on the table, ready for her taking.

_What would he do if I said no? Would he be angry? Would he tell me I never deserved his attention in the first place?_

A part of her was convinced she could not expect anything else.

“I’ll come back to see Peggy tomorrow,” he said, startling her out of her thoughts, “you can think about it until then.”

He started to get up from his seat, and Angie almost told him to stay. But she didn’t have an answer for him yet, so it wouldn’t make sense for her to do that.

“Or you can tell me later,” he continued. “Or never, if you don’t want to talk to me.”

He nodded in her direction with a smile that had nothing of the brightness his honest grins usually had, then exited the room, bidding goodbye to Peggy.


	41. Howard - Coup de Foudre

Howard had no idea what he was doing.

One moment he pretended he was over Angie, the next he was practically begging her for a second chance.

It was that damn smile of hers. For some reason, whenever he saw it, he felt warm and happy. Which was ridiculous, a simple smile was not supposed to do that. And he barely knew the first thing about her.

Sure, she was nice. And she made him laugh. And she was very pretty. She had a true gift as an actress. She was considerate, but still had a temperament. She was passionate and, from what he had gathered on what had happened at the Griffith after his leave, smart enough to fool an entire room of SSR agents without a sweat (this either said a lot about SSR agents or about Angie, whichever it was, Howard was still comforted in his believes).

All of this didn’t justify that he wanted so badly for her to accept to talk to him again.

It did not make sense.

“Sir, did you say something?”

Howard hadn’t realized he was mumbling.

“No, I was just thinking out loud.”

The butler nodded and started to leave – he was only here to bring his employer some coffee – but Howard held him back.

“Wait, Jarvis… Tell me, would you think….”

“Yes, sir?”

Hell, if he could ask anyone, it’d be him.

“Wouldn't it be strange for a man who barely knows anything about a woman to constantly think about her?”

Jarvis straightened up, his brow frowning as he thought over the question, and his hand joined behind his back.

“Well, sir, I wouldn’t say it would be so unusual. Love at first sight is not just an expression -”

“I wasn’t talking about love -”

Jarvis could have guessed Howard was talking about himself, but really, if he had suspected it, he wouldn’t have used such a word. If anything, what Howard was experiencing was probably lust. That was what motivated him in most of his endeavors with women, even if itrarely lasted longer than a week -

“If I may, it sounded a lot like what I experienced after meeting Ana,” said Jarvis. “We hadn’t known each other for so long, but that didn’t stop me from forging my General’s name to insure her safety. I don’t know what I would have done if something had happened to her – and that was before we got married. Only after a couple of dates and I already knew.”

Howard shut his mouth. How could he diminish what the butler and his wife had, when they both were so evidently in love? He couldn’t say he understood it, but he wasn’t about to insult their relationship.

“I’m sorry, sir, I shouldn’t have made your question about me.”

“No, no, don’t be, it was… Enlightening.”

Jarvis exited the room, leaving Howard with his thoughts.

The only thing more ridiculous than the thought of himself being in love was how he was considering it an actual possibility.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon-wise Jarvis and Anna had probably been dating for several months when he forged her papers, but this isn't canon and I do what I want :D.


	42. Angie - What If?

“What do you think?”

“That I’m not the one whose thoughts matter in this, Angie. He asked you, and I don’t know what you want.”

Angie rolled her eyes in her direction and plopped down next to her on the sofa.

“Don’t give me that, English. You got involved the moment you stepped inside to ‘find some sugar’. You were listening to everything we said!”

Peggy avoided her stare, focusing instead on the tea she was cooling by blowing on it. There wasn’t a drop of sugar in that cup.

“Do you want me to tell you what to do?”

“Yes! Wait, no! I don’t know!” Angie moaned, getting up again to resume her pacing.

Over the rim of her cup, Peggy followed her movements, similar to a pendulum.

“I mean, I liked him already when I thought he was just a drunk penniless patron at the Automat -”

“Technically half-true,” Peggy pointed out while Angie continued her rant.

“- and he’s nice and being understanding, and he stopped pushing my limits the moment I told him to-”

“I’m still waiting on the story of how you two met,” interjected Peggy, only to be ignored by Angie who was still pacing in front of her.

“- but am I really ready for a relationship? Wait, what am I saying, does he even want a relationship? He said he liked me, but that doesn’t mean much – does it?”

“Normally, coming from Howard I’d say no, but he’s been really surprising as of late.”

“And what if I do accept to get to know him? What if I don’t like what I see – or even more likely, what if he realizes he made a mistake and backtracks? And what about -”

“It’s about Theodore, isn’t it?”

Angie almost stumbled on the coffee table.

“What?” she squeaked.

Peggy didn’t know everything about Theodore. She knew just enough to tell he was bad news and Angie didn’t like to talk about him, but that was about it.

“You’re so uncomfortable with the idea of giving someone a chance – you’ve done that for every man you’ve dated so far. I thought maybe you were forcing yourself to date because you thought that was expected of you. That maybe you didn’t like it at all. But now I’m starting to wonder if you don’t doubt everyone because of whatever happened with him.”

Angie’s shoulders fell as she dropped on the couch next to her friend.

“I – I just… What if it turns out for the worst?”

Peggy put down her tea to take Angie’s hands in hers. The warmth that they had soaked through the cup was a reassuring glow on Angie’s skin.

“Listen. You can never know what will happen. I can’t promise you this is a good idea. But I can assure you of one thing; despite all of his faults, deep down, Howard is a good man. He won’t hurt you – not intentionally at least. He knows I’d kill him if he did, anyway.”

Angie nodded, her eyes still on their clasped hands.

“So, if worrying about what he could do is what’s stopping you, then this is what I can tell you.”

Peggy sighed, then admitted:

“It also looks like he really likes you. That is a weird thing to say, but I don’t remember ever seeing him smitten like that before.”

The word sent Angie into a giggling fit, which only worsened when Peggy asked:

“What? What did I say? Now you really have to tell me what happened between you two!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost at the last chapter... *sighs* I'm going to miss this story (for anyone reading the comments or who went to my tumblr, I must sound like a broken record, sorry)
> 
> I feel like I should warn you that the last chapter (the one after this one) is... Well, if you thought all the other chapters were short, the last one is really
> 
> **REALLY**
> 
> short in comparison. So, yeah, see you soon for the wrap up!


	43. Angel & Smitten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told you it was a short one.

The next time they saw each other, it was to have a fresh start.

“Hi. My name is Maria Martinelli, but everyone calls me by my second name, Angie. I really don’t like to be called Angela, but Angel is fine.”

“Hi. The name’s Howard Stark, but I don’t mind it if you call me Smitten.”

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. That's the end of that. A big thank you to everyone who left a comment or a kudo on this fic, who subscribed or bookmarked, it really does mean a lot, much more than I can put into words. It's a bit bitter sweet for me to end this fic, but I'm already giddy just thinking about going back to read your lovely comments. Thank you for reading this far, whether you've just discovered this fic or you've been here all along.
> 
> And, if you're from the far future, even years after I've typed these words, don't be shy because you think it'd be creepy to let me know you've read this (apparently some people do think that for whatever reason? I'm an affection starved-writer who will always want more, if anything I'll be the creepy one here)! And thank you to you too for reading!
> 
> Much love, have a great life and all that jazz! - oh boy this note is longer than the chapter - I'm going to stop typing and press post now.

**Author's Note:**

> Psst, I have a tumblr: https://mad-j-j.tumblr.com/ come and say hi!


End file.
